The Aftermath
by TomParis7
Summary: Post reichenbach. Very post reichenbach, it's right after the fall. All their reactions. Quick story. Please enjoy!


**I don't own any Sherlock characters, I just like to write for them. :)**

John Watson hit the ground hard and the biker who hit him kept going. John's mind was whirling. He groaned and didn't want to move. He knew Sherlock was lying some ten feet away from where he was lying. He squinted through the pain in his throbbing head and struggled to his feet.

"Please let me though, I'm a doctor." John mumbled pushing past the swarming nurses to his friend. That's when he saw him.

_Sherlock._

_Sherlock. _

"God no." John said. His head was swimming violently. He saw Sherlock's body on the pavement. And the blood, there was so much blood.

"Jesus no." John said again and felt himself falling to the ground beside his friend.

"Oh god no." John felt like he was drowning in those brilliantly blue eyes that were still open. A shaking hand felt for his pulse. Nothing. He kept his hand on the wrist of his best friend. His only friend.

_Sherlock._

"Jesus… Jesus." John said, as he felt people pulling him away from Sherlock's body. He saw through his fuzzy brain doctors lifting Sherlock onto a gurney and running inside with him in it. John couldn't take his eyes of the spot where Sherlock had lay. The image of his broken body was scorched into John's mind. People were still holding him up and John waved them off with a hand. As the crowd started to clear, John sat on the ground, feeling blackness closing on the corners of his mind. His head was spinning violently and he felt very sick. He also felt the horrible pang of hearing Sherlock's voice for the last time reply in his head:

_Goodbye John._

It wasn't right. None of this could be real. John sat on the pavement close to the puddle of blood that was Sherlock's and thought stiffly, I'll just wake up and Sherlock will be doing some crazy experiment next to me. He'll be there. And this will be a dream. John almost smiled at the thought of waking up, but then the serions jolted him from his trance. He was brought back to reality hard. John let out another gasping breath and shook his head quickly, trying to rid it of pain. It didn't work. It just added to it.

A few minutes later, the shrieking ambulance pulled up on the pavement beside John, followed by two police cars. Lestrade jumped out of it and nearly ran into John on the ground.

"John!" he yelled, getting on his haunches, "John? What's happened? I heard something about Sherlock jum-" Lestrade stopped at the look on John's horrorstruck face.

"Someone get him some air!" Lestrade yelled to a nearby doctor. John found himself crying. When did that happen? The tears wouldn't stop. They just kept coming, in waves, he sobbed into his hands.

"John?" Lestrade said, gently placing his hand on John's shoulder. John didn't look up because he felt like he would fall away if he did. John felt a warm blanket being placed around his shoulders but he ignored it. He also ignored the doctor coming over and asking him if he was all right. John was not all right.

"John? What happened?" Lestrade's eyes were filled with worry and pain as John finally looked up at him. He hiccupped and felt his throat tighten.

"Sher- Sher-" John gasped through tight breaths, "Sherlock ju-" John had to stop again. It took him a few more moments where he was struggling for breath then. "Sherlock j-j-jumped. And he said he was a fake" John managed, "B-but, he's not."

"What?" Lestrade jumped to his feet, "no!" He started pacing, running his hands through his graying hair. "No." Lestrade stopped and looked down at John.

"Oh John." He said kindly, bending down, "Come on. Let's get you up." He tried to pulled John up but it was a difficult feet. "Up you come, come on. That's the ticket." Lestrade managed to half drag John over to the ambulance and place him into a sitting position on one of the gurneys. Then he said to one of the EMT's, "Look after him for a moment."

And Lestrade headed into Barts. He walked to the front desk and said, "Josh, people are telling me that Sherlock just jumped? This isn't right, right?"

"It is." Said the receptionist sadly, "I saw him hit the ground and the doctors take him inside. I just confirmed it with Molly Hooper."

Lestrade stepped back, as though being hit by a shock wave. "No." Lestrade said, feeling a panic and twisted sadness rip though is stomach, "it can't be." Lestrade half walked- half ran down to the morgue. There was Molly. She jumped when Lestrade burst in.

"Oh." She said in a small voice, "L-lestrade." She chocked, "You heard?"

Lestrade wasn't listing. He was looking past Molly to the man lying dead on the cold table. Sherlock Holmes. The greatest man Lestrade had ever known was lying on a slab. Lestrade felt a tear on his face and whipped it away furiously.

"Molly…?" Lestrade turned a helpless gaze to Molly's stricken face. Molly merely shook her head Lestrade grimaced and said, "Oh my god." Over and over again to himself. Then he added, "I gotta go take care of John. H-He's a right m-mess." Lestrade cursed his voice for cracking. Molly just nodded and Lestrade crashed out of the room once more.

"He's gone." Molly said, whipping away a tear on her face before Sherlock could come around the corner again. Sherlock let out a huge sigh, "that was close. I thought he saw me on the way in I-" Sherlock stopped at the look on Molly's face.

"You alright?" Sherlock asked.

Molly just glanced at him then back to the floor, "We need to treat that wound." She pointed to the cut on his head. Sherlock whipped away the blood nonchantly, "I'll be fine." Molly noticed the Detective's hands shaking slightly.

"You ok?" Molly stepped forward.

"Yes." Sherlock walked away and spoke again, "You'll need to file the report. I need to speak to Mycroft before this hit's the papers. Then I need to go, Molly I appreciate all that you have done." And Sherlock headed for the door.

"That's all?" Molly's voice shook now, not with sadness, but anger.

"All?" Sherlock turned.

"That's all your going to do? Just fake your own death and leave everyone behind you just spent all this time saving? Your terrible" She spat, throwing him a look that Sherlock had never seen on her face, a look of contempt.

"What else am I supposed to do?" Sherlock's voice shook ever so slightly, "I can't hang around here. I have to disappear, now, before people like Lestrade find me."

"Or John" Molly interjected, her eyes set.

Molly saw a kind of sorrow pass Sherlock's eyes and he said, "What other choice do I have?" Sherlock sounded defeated. Molly was scared now, in all the years she had known him, she had never heard him sound so lost or sad. Molly softened immediately.

"I know. I'm sorry." She patted his shoulder and he stiffened at the touch. Sherlock was very jumpy at the moment, Molly noticed.

"Now go." She whispered, giving him one last look before he swept from the room.

Sherlock climbed the stairs pulling on a lab coat as he went. Not having his old coat anymore, having used it on the corpse. Sherlock also pulled out a hat to cover his dark black curls. Then he ran up another staircase and exited out the side door. Sherlock would have to tell Mycroft to erase the video camera tapes later. For now, Sherlock walked on the main street and stopped in his tracks.

There he was. John Watson. Sherlock's best and only friend. He was sitting in an ambulance with a bright orange blanket covering his shaking shoulders. Sherlock backed into the shadows and watched. He had never seen someone cry the way John did now. His entire body was shaking, and no matter who talked to him or what they said, John did not lift his head or show any inkling that he had heard them.

Sherlock almost dropped all of his plans and went to John. He wanted to so badly. John looked so sad. And he, Sherlock, had done this to him. He wanted to run to John, hold him in his arms and say that he was so sorry. But then someone bumped past him and it shook Sherlock out of his revere.

It was only then that he noticed he was crying. Crying. Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, was crying. Sherlock whipped away his tears furiously and looked away. It took all of Sherlock's remaining will to walk away from that scene. From John. From his life with him. The only thing going was the thought of John, and how someday soon, he hoped, he would see him again. And he would hold him, and never let him go. It was with this thought that Sherlock strode back down the alley and disappeared from sight.


End file.
